As widely known, a whirlpool bath is a bath having a function of jetting water or bubble water at a high pressure into a bathtub.
As the prior art about the whirlpool bath, there is, for example, a whirlpool bath of FIG. 6 disclosed in Korean Utility Patent Laid-Open No 20-2009-0000774.
As illustrated in FIG. 6, the prior whirlpool bath 100 includes a bathtub body 110 in which a bathtub 111 is formed, suction port 120 sucking the water in the bathtub 111, jet nozzles 130 jetting bubble water into the bathtub 111, a circulation pipe 140 having a water supply pipe 141 and a return pipe 142, and a pump 150 installed in the circulation pipe 140.
The water supply pipe 141 is connected to the jet nozzles 130 and supplies water to the jet nozzles 130. The return pipe 142 is connected to the suction port 120 and returns water in the bathtub 111 to the pump 150. The pump 150 provides a water pressure for sucking the water in the bathtub 111 through the suction port 120 and for jetting bubble water through the jet nozzles 130.
Since the whirlpool bath uses a certain amount of water repeatedly and the water is circulated in the circulation pipe 140, dirt separated from the human body and components contained in tap water can be adhered to the inner surface of the circulation pipe 140, as a result, scale can be easily generated on the inner surface of the circulation pipe 140.
The scale of the circulation pipe 140 partially falls off into the water during the use of the whirlpool bath. The detached scale not only makes the user feel dirty, but also is not good for hygiene, thereby acts as a factor to be reluctant to use the whirlpool bath. For this reason, it is necessary to hygienically manage the piping of whirlpool bath.
One of the typical pipe sanitary management methods is to periodically clean the scale attached to the pipe using a chemical detergent with strong cleaning effect.
As an additional method of hygienic management of the whirlpool bath, there are a method of suppressing the propagation of germs by applying the ozone sterilizing apparatus disclosed in Korean Patent Laid-Open No. 10-2011-0099978 and a method of preventing water from remaining in the whirlpool bath after use disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-1541875.
However, the washing method of the scale by the detergent has a problem that the washing operation is very difficult. Also, the method of ozone disinfection and the method of removing residual water are merely auxiliary methods and are not a fundamental way to hygienically manage the whirlpool bath.